[WIP][1.12.x] James Webb for Kerbal

[bcink]

Learned the basics of bones (thanks @dboi88) and finished the accordion style radiator flap on the rear (see video). I believe the top section is finished being modelled.

[bcink]

Finished modelling the main antenna. See video: 

[bcink]

The rear solar panel is good to go (bones applied). See video:

[bcink]

It happened! I finished modelling *everything*.... see video!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bcink]

UV unwrapping has been completed for:

• The base structure
• Side radiator flaps
• Rear solar panel
• Main antenna 
• Side antenna 

Near completion on the main mirror structure.

[bcink]

Unwrapping has finished for the top structure which ends all UV unwrapping for JWST. Next I enter uncharted territory in beginning to start creating and applying graphics to the textures...

 

[bcink]

It's taken a good bit of time but I finally grasp the logic behind the main texture file, the layers involved between the ambient occlusion shadow bake being a multiply layer and the others falling between, the alpha channel in the texture file, as well as creating a normal map from a bump map image. Started the process on a basic part - the side flaps. Discovered that Unity really didn't like having animation keys attached to parts which are children of animated bones. It basically ignored them, so I had to re-do the animation behind those flaps as well... hoping that isn't foreshadowing issues with the rear solar panel flap, but should be able to correct that as well no problem if it happens. Collision mesh logic is also good to go. The side flaps have them, and it shouldn't be too hard to get them created for the rest of the model. 

I also started a new job this week so it's been a little more slow going because of that but this project is definitely not going anywhere!

[Drakenex]

Amazing work!! My Ariane 5 is waiting

[bcink]

Starting off on the smaller pieces so I get in the hang of this. Definitely going to take some practice but it looks promising! As of now I believe I have completed the side antenna, the side flaps, as well as the rear solar panel, which looks pretty good in my opinion thanks a million to the help of @CobaltWolf!!!. See pics and video below:

Secondary antenna:

Side flaps:

Rear solar panel:

 

Edited September 24, 2017 by bcink
made sure to include props for @cobaltwolf's help on texturing

[CobaltWolf]

In turn, thanks must be given to @Beale whose solar panel texture I've spent the last two years stealing.

[bcink]

Hey, so I'm having a nightmare of a time importing the main antenna into unity. The fbx is losing all it's animation start/ end frame info. It's all set to 0. Any suggestions anyone?

[dboi88]

3 hours ago, bcink said:

Hey, so I'm having a nightmare of a time importing the main antenna into unity. The fbx is losing all it's animation start/ end frame info. It's all set to 0. Any suggestions anyone?

Are you still un selecting all the tick boxes on the animation tab when exporting?

[bcink]

3 hours ago, dboi88 said:

Are you still un selecting all the tick boxes on the animation tab when exporting?

noo everything is checked

[bcink]

The issue has been resolved by exporting the FBX in older version format ASCII instead of binary.... Texturing this object may now resume.

[bcink]

Looking for suggestions on the best way to separate the main parts....

Issue being: The top section must rise before the heat shields rise up. The heatshield arms must fold down before that happens, or the booms for the main mirror would hit them. We could just: click deploy on the base structure and quickly hit deploy on the top section before the animations cut into each other... or divide into different pieces somehow. The ideal scenario would be to have the piston that rises up in the center be a separate part, but this cannot happen without something like Infernal Robotics.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

[Drakenex]

The attention to detail is awesome!! great job

 

 

just digged out this from the very old stuff vault hehe

 

 

11 minutes ago, bcink said:

Looking for suggestions on the best way to separate the main parts....

Issue being: The top section must rise before the heat shields rise up. The heatshield arms must fold down before that happens, or the booms for the main mirror would hit them. We could just: click deploy on the base structure and quickly hit deploy on the top section before the animations cut into each other... or divide into different pieces somehow. The ideal scenario would be to have the piston that rises up in the center be a separate part, but this cannot happen without something like Infernal Robotics.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

May be the only reusable parts will be the main telescope, solar panel and antenna, all the rest could be one piece.

Edited September 29, 2017 by Drakenex

[bcink]

9 hours ago, Drakenex said:

The attention to detail is awesome!! great job

just digged out this from the very old stuff vault hehe

May be the only reusable parts will be the main telescope, solar panel and antenna, all the rest could be one piece.

Thank you!! That's an awesome JWST also.  I've pondered the idea of a single piece for the whole structure. I don't exactly know why but I had multiple parts in the original vision. Perhaps a single structure would be the way to go... hmmmm

[bcink]

Alrighty - Thanks to some tutorials from @CobaltWolf I have a pretty thorough understanding of the texture process now and was able to apply the information given to finish the main antenna (see pic).

 

[Fengist]

On 9/29/2017 at 10:33 AM, bcink said:

Looking for suggestions on the best way to separate the main parts....

Issue being: The top section must rise before the heat shields rise up. The heatshield arms must fold down before that happens, or the booms for the main mirror would hit them. We could just: click deploy on the base structure and quickly hit deploy on the top section before the animations cut into each other... or divide into different pieces somehow. The ideal scenario would be to have the piston that rises up in the center be a separate part, but this cannot happen without something like Infernal Robotics.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

There's two ways I can think of to accomplish this.

1. Everything is one large animation and it all takes place in one timeline.  It appears you're creating your animations inside of your modelling software.  Be aware that Unity can do all of those animations for you and you can do multiple things at one time and sequence everything by using keyframes.  And, it does easing by default.  The benefit of that, you can use ModuleAnimateGeneric and it'll handle it all forward and reverse.  

2. Lots of short animations but, you'll likely need a custom plugin get them to sequence properly.

And you don't need infernal robotics to make an animation.  Watch my video in this thread and you'll see two pistons pushing a fish-tail back and forth. 

That's just an animation.  Infernal robotics moving parts are just animations.  The difference, the plugin tells the part which direction to play, when to stop,  and when to reverse.

Edited October 1, 2017 by Fengist

[bcink]

@Fengist I'll have to see if there are any plugin options available perhaps. I mention infernal robotics because if I keep everything separate parts, the actual node shifts with the animation and all other connected parts would need to move with it. My understanding is that an animation alone will not move connecting nodes and would break any touching parts?

Sweet pack by the way!!!

Edited October 1, 2017 by bcink

[Fengist]

 

9 hours ago, bcink said:

@Fengist I'll have to see if there are any plugin options available perhaps. I mention infernal robotics because if I keep everything separate parts, the actual node shifts with the animation and all other connected parts would need to move with it. My understanding is that an animation alone will not move connecting nodes and would break any touching parts?

Sweet pack by the way!!!

Well, you have me there.  I know if you surface attach to an animated part, the surface attached part won't move.  As for the nodes moving, not sure.  And thinking about it, IR may not use an animation. I know some modders that rely on plugins to rotate and move transforms the old fashioned way, math.

The number of parts you have in your modeller is irrelevant as far as Unity is concerned and you won't really need nodes unless you want the thing to be assembled from lots of little parts.  The question is, how many nodes do you plan on having to attach the final telescope to a mount?  If it's just one or if they're all on a 'base' part and everything else moves then you won't need a plugin, just Unity. Unity can take all of your separate parts and put them in one 'scene', animate any or all of them and spit out one final part for KSP to digest.  It gets kinda tricky because, the point of rotation for Unity is usually the xyz 0 in your modeller.

The way I do it is, I build all the separate parts in the moddeling software in the proper spots and save that file.  Then, I take each part in turn and move the spot I want to pivot around to the 0.0.0 location and export that part.  For example, if you built a car with 2 different types of wheels, you'd move both wheels so that the hub is at 0.0.0.  Then, export and start reassembling things in Unity in their proper location.

Edited October 1, 2017 by Fengist

[Fengist]

I shall demonstrate

This is a looping animation of the prop engine I mentioned.  There's 2 other parts you don't see in this, the actual prop and a blurred mesh it switches to at high speeds.    It took a good bit of work to get everything lined up in Unity but you see it can be done.

Oh, and there's a crank shaft you don't see and the 'rod bearing' which you just barely see that everything is attached to.

Edited October 1, 2017 by Fengist

[bcink]

@Fengist Cool, I follow on that!

Yeah I was thinking the bottom structure would be a separate part from the piston / top structure. Just one node on the bottom for some decoupler and one on the top where the piston would go. Ideally, the piston having a top and bottom node, and moving the top structure up when activated, like an I.R. telescopic piston, but on animation. 

 

Scored a pen and tablet today thanks to my girl and practiced using it to complete the texturing for the RCS thrusters! (See pic:)

[Fengist]

4 hours ago, bcink said:

@Fengist Cool, I follow on that!

Yeah I was thinking the bottom structure would be a separate part from the piston / top structure. Just one node on the bottom for some decoupler and one on the top where the piston would go. Ideally, the piston having a top and bottom node, and moving the top structure up when activated, like an I.R. telescopic piston, but on animation. 

My humble opinion is thus:  Unless you think there's a reason why your telescope should be assembled from multiple parts and unless the end user is able to assemble it in multiple ways, make it one part, just like the in-game telescope.  Nothing makes me scratch my head more than a bunch of parts that can only be assembled one way to make one thing.  The whole point of multiple parts is so I can assemble them into unique things.

Ultimately though, this is your creation so you decide how it goes together and what the end result is.  There's only one person you need to make happy with this and that's you.  I'm just glad you're sharing the creative process.

[bcink]

@Fengist You make a very valid point. Having not found any viable solution thus far I think that is the only realistic approach I can take without fumbling between clicking on deploy animation on multiple parts in quick succession (which wouldn't really make for an ideal in-game experience). Not looking forward to reworking the UV map but I haven't really done much with texturing on the two large segments anyways, so now is the time to fix it up right. Likely, will end up working this in 2056x2056 texture file...